Twitter Can’t Escape TCPA Class Action Lawsuit

A California federal judge has denied Twitter Inc.’s motion for partial summary judgment, finding that the social networking company is responsible for texting tweets to recycled cell phone numbers, and that this conduct is a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

The Twitter text spam class action lawsuit was filed by plaintiff Beverly Nunes, who says she is not a Twitter user.

When she received a recycled cell phone number, she soon began receiving tweets as text messages because the previous owner of the cell phone number had signed up to receive tweets as texts.

According to the Twitter TCPA class action lawsuit, Nunes replied to some of the text tweets to get them to stop, but her efforts were unsuccessful.

Nunes subsequently filed this Twitter text spam class action lawsuit on behalf of herself and other people in the United States who have received unwanted texts from Twitter.

She asserts that these unwanted text messages violated the TCPA, a federal law that prohibits companies from sending automated text messages to cell phones without the consent of the recipient.

Twitter and Nunes filed cross-motions for partial summary judgment that involve two issues.

The first issue is whether Twitter is potentially liable to Nunes under the TCPA. The second issue is whether, if Twitter is liable under the TCPA, the social networking company would be shielded from liability under the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

“Twitter contends that because the former owner signed up to receive tweets by text in the future, this means the former owner ‘makes’ all the text-message calls to that number in the future,” U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria writes. “This is, of course, contrary to the ordinary meaning of the word ‘make’ – when someone signs up to receive a call from someone else in the future, he is not ‘making’ that call when it comes in.”

Judge Chhabria thus concluded that Twitter was the only plausible “maker” of the text messages, and therefore could potentially be held liable under the TCPA.

Twitter argues that even if it could be held liable under the TCPA, it is shielded by the Communications Decency Act because the content at issue is created by third parties and, as an interactive computer service, Twitter isn’t actually the publisher of the tweets.

Judge Chhabria found that Twitter’s argument doesn’t apply because the TCPA class action lawsuit claims don’t depend on specific content contained in tweets or an assumption that Twitter monitors tweets for appropriateness before they are posted.

“Just the opposite – if Twitter ends up being liable under the TCPA, it would be liable whether the content of the unwanted tweets is bad or good, harmful or harmless,” the judge writes. “Either way, the unwanted tweet is a nuisance.”

Nunes is represented by Jeffrey Keller, Carey Been and Sarah Holloway of Keller Grover LLP; John Jacobs and Bryan Kolton of Jacobs Kolton Chtd. and the Law Offices of David Schachman PC.

The Twitter Text Spam Class Action Lawsuit is Nunes, et al. v. Twitter Inc., Case No. 3:14-cv-02843, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Join a Free TCPA Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you were contacted on your cell phone by a company via an unsolicited text message (text spam) or prerecorded voice message (robocall), you may be eligible for compensation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Get a Free Case Evaluation Now